


First Contact

by finned (tenderized)



Series: It's Cold in Space [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: """Drifting"""", Alternate Universe - Space, Fake Science, Fighter Pilots, Gen, M/M, Mind Meld, Osamu submits to the mortifying ordeal of being Known, Space Crew, Suna: the metaphorical butterfly pinned to the corkboard, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, ambiguous ending, author takes creative liberties with suna's flexibility, heavily influenced by Pacific Rim and Ender's Game but is sadly neither, if some friendly sparring goes weird that's between osasuna and god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24611065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenderized/pseuds/finned
Summary: Despite all the lectures and warnings that Osamu received prior to coming up to the SSE Memory, no one had ever thought to warn him about the quiet. Not just quiet really, but the total loss of sound in the vacuum of space. Maybe it should have been obvious. After all, he had taken the necessary courses prior to his arrival, and thus knew of the physics behind molecular vibrations and sounds.Still.It’s jarring.Osamu doesn't know much about faith.
Relationships: Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Series: It's Cold in Space [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779274
Comments: 9
Kudos: 78
Collections: OsaSuna Week 2020, SunaOsa





	1. Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for OsaSunaWeek 2020!
> 
> Day 3/Tier 1: First/Touch

_Pulvis et umbra sumus. We are but dust and shadow._

Despite all the lectures and warnings that Osamu received prior to coming up to the _SSE Memory_ , no one had ever thought to warn him about the quiet. Not just quiet really, but the total loss of sound in the vacuum of space. Maybe it should have been obvious. After all, he had taken the necessary courses prior to his arrival, and thus knew of the physics behind molecular vibrations and sounds.

_Still._

It’s jarring. 

Even once safely back on board the ship and back in regulation uniform, the memory of such complete stillness never really manages to wholly dissipate. The buzzing of cicadas on summer nights and rushing of wind through the tree branches and tapping of raindrops against his window aren’t really a thing anymore, replaced by faint mechanical whirring and the creaking of the pipes whenever some asshole in his suite decides to take a late-night shower. That, at least hasn’t changed, and reminds him of the first two years spent in mandatory dorms back on Earth before he and his brother had both gotten their letters of clearance and official spots aboard the _SSE Memory_. Here, they have just two more years of training before they’re shipped off to wherever in the galaxy they are needed.

It’s one thing to know about the quiet in all its theory and numbers but entirely something else to actually _endure_ it. Even if someone had told him beforehand, driven it point blank into his mind like a hammer with a nail, told him that nothing would ever be the way it was back home, would there really have been a difference? It’s this thought that runs around Osamu’s mind now as he tries to force himself to sleep through sheer strength of will, the lack of sound manifesting into an almost physicality, an oppressive weight around his ears. Nothing he tries will work. Fifty push-ups and fifty sit-ups into the night in some futile attempt to exhaust himself, and he’s still wide awake. 

_East side window, please_ , he says into the darkness, and the right wall goes transparent. There are billions upon billions of stars outside, inexhaustible bright pinpricks of light upon a velveteen black. They’d lost their twinkle as soon as he’d outstripped the Earth’s atmosphere, but still, it’s breathtaking, beautiful and terrible in a way that tells him he’ll never feel quite at home here. There are too many to count, certainly, but still he tries. He manages to reach somewhere in the six hundreds before losing track.

Only in rare moments like this does he allow himself the indignity of maybe actually missing his brother. Atsumu is impossible and a massive pain in the ass, so it isn’t a lie to say that he’d been ecstatic when told that he would finally be given a room to himself away from Atsumu’s snoring. _Good riddance_ to that bastard honestly, he’d said when they found out that rooms had been assigned prior to any space cadet’s arrival. And like clockwork, Atsumu had thrown a fit and railed the words back at him, only to complain and whine to him the very next morning at breakfast about how scary Kita Shinsuke, his newly assigned roommate, is.

Even so, Atsumu’s bluster had been a familiar constant, the same way a neighbor’s rabid dog’s barking felt almost like security on those rare nights where he had walked home by himself late at night after practice. 

He glances at the red digits on his desk again. Seven minutes since the last time he’d checked. Osamu groans and shoves his face against his pillow. Maybe it will be easier if he just suffocates himself. 

He must fall asleep eventually because from one moment to the next, the soft hiss of the door seal depressurizing has him jolting back to consciousness, heartbeat jackrabbiting beneath his ribs.

Disoriented and squinting against the perpetual light of the hallway, he grapples against his sheets as he swings his legs off the bed, moving to stand up only to slip on the papers scattered across the floor.

A figure moves into the room, and the door slides shut behind him.

“Ah, wait. Don’t--“, he tries to say before the lights are on at full brightness, white and piercing, as the intruder flips the switch. “What the _fuck_ , man.” He’s going to permanently deactivate the “Bright White” function of the lights next time he gets the chance, screw what studies say about fluorescent bulbs and productivity. 

Osamu braces the heels of his palms against his eyes and tries to will away the starbursts of light as he sits back down onto his mattress heavily, the pen he’d grabbed off his desk to use as who-knows-what still gripped tightly in his right hand.

“Oh. Sorry,” the stranger says, not sounding very sorry. By the time he finally lifts his head to look at the other, a boy his age, his mind registers, he can feel himself calming as the shock wears off. He’s on the _SSE Memory_ , renowned space station designed to train the future of the new frontier. Whoever is in his room right now is probably meant to be there. Any real danger is improbable. And with this newly realized knowledge, the entire situation goes from mildly terrifying to highly irritating.

He chances a look at the digital clock at his desk and seeing it display a little before 0500, Coordinated Universal Time, glares at the intruder, brows drawing together. If he had been Atsumu, he’d be yelling expletives already, but unlike Atsumu, he reminds himself, he is a civilized member of society, and only this thought keeps him from saying anything he won’t be able to take back.

“Who the hell are ya, and what are you doing in my room at fuck o’clock in the morning?” The stranger looks at him, blank-faced and unimpressed. He’s dressed in casual streetwear, wearing an oversized green windbreaker over dark pants and a dark shirt. His neon sneakers are an eyesore.

He lifts the duffle bag he’s holding at his side as if in explanation. 

“Suna Rintarou.” Suna pauses, as if debating if it’s worth the effort to elaborate. “Your new roommate, apparently. They didn’t tell you?” he asks, toeing off his shoes at the doorway and shuffling further into the room to toss his bag by the other bed. 

The thing is, they probably had. If he thinks about it, he can faintly recall reading a notification from HQ on his holo-pad, a message saying something or other about Osamu readying his room for someone to move in in the next week or so, before he’d swiped it away, but in the bustle of new routines and practice schedules, clearly it had slipped his mind.

“No. They didn’t.” he says instead, the words coming out more petulantly than he would like.

“Oh.” Suna wrinkles his nose. “Well, surprise,” Suna says, shoulder half-shrugging in apology.

Osamu blearily watches his new roommate explore the room, pulling drawers open and thumbing through the shared file cabinet, before deciding that he might as well start getting ready for the day and leaves the room, toiletries in hand.

When he returns to the room, Suna is gone, and he makes move to dress himself for the day. Standard dark grey pants with black trim, black undershirt, grey uniform over that, belt. He thumbs at his collar and imagines the small silver wings he’ll receive once he’s passed all the flight simulations, opposite side of the dark steel bar he had gotten before leaving Earth. 

He frowns at himself in the mirror and presses against the dark circles he’s accumulated. Maybe Suna snores, and he’ll finally be able to get a good night’s sleep. 

He’s lacing his boots up when Suna steps back into the room, looking disgruntled.

“The showers cut automatically?” One hand is holding up the towel wrapped around his waist, and the other is drying his hair with another towel. His shoulders are broad, Osamu notices, if a little bony. Some of the shower water has gathered in his collarbones, and the spread of them remind him vaguely of a sketch of bat wings he’d seen in one of his mandatory Comparative Physiology courses.

“Uh, yes. Ten minutes per person. You used the finger-scan by the shower stalls, right? That’s how they keep track.” There’s probably a way to work around them, but Osamu’s never bothered looking for one. Suna, however, looks like someone that doesn’t deal well with regulation, if Osamu’s being a little judgmental, so maybe he’ll figure it out.

“Hmm,” Suna frowns. “I see.” He moves over to his side of the room, where he’d laid out his uniform on the bed.

“Ah, you can use this if ya want. Fer privacy if ya want it.” Osamu moves to press a button on the panel by the door and from the center of the room there materializes a wall, bisecting the room in two, and blocking their view of each other. “It’s just light effects, see?” He reaches across the opacity, and his arm appears to disappear through the middle of the wall. “So no one can accident’ly gets severed for real or nothin’.” He presses the button again, and the wall disappears. 

Suna smiles, eyebrows raised, impressed despite himself. “Nah, I don’t need it. If you don’t care, I don’t either. Nothing you haven’t seen before, right?” 

Osamu shrugs. “Suit yerself.” Despite his words, he turns away towards his desk and fiddles with his Medi-watch, unplugging it from its charger and strapping it to his wrist, feeling oddly self-conscious. This shouldn’t be new. He played sports all throughout high school, and he’s no stranger to locker rooms.

Behind him he can hear rustling as Suna changes. After the fifth time adjusting the strap of his watch, and finally deeming it safe from either cutting off his circulation or falling off his wrist, he turns in his chair, chin resting against his fist as he observes. 

Suna is worrying at the polished black buttons of the cuffs at his wrist. His hands are all long fingers, wide palms, his blunt fingernails popping the button in and out of the eyehole. In and out, in and out, in and out. In his uniform, he looks like any other cadet, and Osamu imagines him blending in seamlessly on the training deck or in the simulation rooms. 

Would he be good at hand-to-hand combat? Sharpshooting? Maybe he’s also here to be a pilot. Osamu’s already been paired with Atsumu. It had been a no-brainer, and they’d been assigned to each other almost instantly when their minds linked together seamlessly, but it’s a merciless system and cadets are constantly being replaced.

He suddenly realizes he knows nothing at all about Suna, this person he’s supposed to share a living space with for two years.

Osamu’s never been insecure but growing up with his brother has taught him everything about competition and self-preservation.

He’s filled with an abrupt need to know how he measures up, and he’s up and walking over before his mind registers it as a conscious decision. From what he’d seen of him, Osamu’s pretty sure that he’s got Suna beat at least in terms of muscle, but with the way Suna slouches, it’s hard to gauge his height.

When Suna turns around to face him, straightening reflexively, they’re eye-level. Osamu’s closer than he thought he’d be, and he almost shies away because this is a little weird, but he’s committed. From this distance he can count every single one of Suna’s long, sooty eyelashes if he wants, notices the way they frame his light-colored eyes.

“What’re ya here for anyway?” If Suna’s surprised by the question, or irritated by the intrusion into his personal space, he doesn’t show it, and instead just moves to take his holo-pad out of his pocket. His fingers swipe across the screen and then flick outwards, so his stats are projected in front of the two of them.

Suna Rintarou  
January 25, 20XX  
Height: 185.7 cm  
Weight: 73.2 kg  
Astrobiologist

Suna Rintarou. Younger by three months and twenty Earth days. Taller by 1.9 centimeters. Lighter by 1.3 kg. _Not_ looking to be a pilot. 

Suna doesn’t ask, but Osamu brings out his own holo-pad and offers over his own profile.

“Osamu Miya. Pilot. Nice to meet you.”

________________________________ 

Flying had always been Atsumu’s dream. Osamu was good at it, better than most even, and no one knew his brother better than him, so when they’d both ended up on the _Memory_ , it felt only natural to fall into step next to his brother.

Mind meld technology came to space as a natural progression from its popularized use back on Earth for high-risk, clandestine operations. The best ships nowadays rely primarily on such technology, with automated controls and manual steering reserved for backup. Flying as an extension of the mind allowed for more precise maneuvers and split-second decisions, with the additional benefit of being more energy efficient, and utilization of the partner system eased the burden on any singular person.

Everyone on the ship was tested for compatibility despite their position, even if they would never actually fly a ship that necessitated mind-melding. This mandate arose from an international tragedy where a pilot and her last remaining shipmate attempted to mind-meld to escape enemy forces, believing that avoiding capture due to the inferior movements of manual piloting was worth the risk. The adverse, damaging circumstances of losing her co-pilot compounded with the innate incompatibility of both crew members had led to both losing their minds.

It became unspoken law. Incompatible pilots should not attempt to mind-meld in the case of emergency; it was always better to attempt manual controls than to go insane. 

His first time Drifting with Atsumu during a simulation happens the second day they arrive on the _Memory_. On paper, it’s genius, almost a hundred percent compatibility, surpassing the predicted 94%, and no one’s surprised because despite the way they bicker, the Miya twins have always been two sides of the same coin. They finish the assessment with a record 37 minutes and 29 seconds, top of their class, and for first attempt, it’s basically a miracle.

 _The twin stars Gemini_ is heard in jealous whispers among the cadets for days after. _It’s in their DNA._

That’s not true, obviously, because it’s hard work and probably a little luck that gets them where they are. High compatibility is a necessity but not a guarantee for flying well, and records show hundreds of twins that have failed to do what they have. You could be Apollo and Artemis and still fail to fly properly.

Atsumu doesn’t give a fuck, sneers at the rest of their classmates and makes enemies quickly. Osamu rolls his eyes, says that sharing a headspace with Atsumu is probably the hardest thing he’s ever done, and dismissing that as a twin thing is dismissing the sheer effort and patience he’s had to invest.

The reality is that Drifting is everything terrifying. There is a sort of hyperawareness of his own actions that Osamu has lived with his entire life, byproduct of bearing witness to the fallouts and consequences of every single one of Atsumu’s impulses, and he’s crafted his image cognizant of how others will perceive him, every action and every word deliberate, calculated.

Awkwardness to vulnerability is the instinctual reaction, but because it’s Atsumu, and Osamu has never in his life allowed Atsumu to embarrass him, this fades in the hunger to be better, to be the best. Atsumu’s hunger is his hunger is their hunger, and together they are insatiable.

________________________________ 

Suna tells him that his compatibility assessment is at 1500 CUT and that the rest of the day prior he’ll be in the labs, so Osamu offers to pick him up then to show him the sparring room. It’s not really like him to go out of his way to help someone out, but he’s a little curious to what happens on the lower decks, and he figures he might as well make friends with his roommate, and he has that timeslot free anyway.

About an hour early, he dismisses himself from the company of Bokuto and Atsumu and heads down to the labs. The air in the lower levels is colder and dryer, probably to prevent humidity from compromising any experiments, and he finds his breath coming out in small, white puffs.

He stops in front of the door labeled with the number that Suna had pinged him earlier, and the monitor in front douses him in sterilizing ultraviolet light before the doors slide open.

In the back, he’s greeted with the sight of Kita dissecting something, its massive form almost eclipsing him from sight. 

“Osamu,” Kita greets, sparing him a passing glance before turning back to the specimen. Kita is a familiar sight. A friend, maybe. Osamu’s honestly not quite sure. They’re closer than Osamu is with most other people on board, and along with Atsumu, the three of them always sit together for breakfast by silent agreement.

His blue gloves are speckled with the darker blue blood of the creature on the table, and he works at slicing the brain into rice-paper thin cross-sections.

“Kita.” Osamu smiles. “Watcha working on?”

“She was picked up by Kuroo and Yaku on their last mission. Relatively harmless, and she was covered with the space ash we’ve been studying, so it seemed worth the hassle. She was injured, so we were planning to nurse her back to health and observe her cognition, but she died suddenly.”

“Sounds cool.” Sounds complicated, really. “Should’ve come down earlier to see what ya usually do around here.”

Kita looks up at him again.

“Ya’ve never visited before,” he observes, tone half a step before curious and bypassing accusatory. Osamu fidgets, unsure why suddenly it feels like he’s the one on the dissection table. “You shouldn’t say things ya don’t really mean.” There’s an unspoken question in the air.

“I’m here for Suna. Ah, I got assigned a roomie. He’s s’posed ta have the compatibility assessment soon, so I figured I’d show him to the sparring room and help with warmups.”

Kita hums and motions past a door in the back.

“He’s working with the space ash in the backroom.” 

He finds Suna hunched over a glass container containing glowing motes suspended in a viscous, bioluminescent solvent. He raps on the door, and Suna blinks up at him, startled, before glancing at his holo-pad for the time.

“Hey, you’re early.” Suna presses a switch on the table, shutting off the light on the glass container, and the fluorescence fades, leaving only what appears as faint black specks. He moves to peel off his gloves, tossing them into the waste removal bin at the edge of the desk as he walks towards Osamu. There’s a faint suction sound, and the gloves disappear.

“Figured ya might wanna warm-up a little before yer test,” Osamu says. He points at the jar Suna was frowning at earlier. “What’s that?” Suna turns his head to follow his gesture. 

“Space ash,” he answers. “Let me show you.” Then, he frowns, nose wrinkling, as he realizes he’d just thrown away his gloves. “Or, maybe next time. I don’t feel like putting on another pair of gloves.”

Osamu stares at him, unimpressed. “Yer so lazy.”

Suna rolls his eyes. “It’s not like they’re going anywhere. You can just come down again next time, and I’ll show you, easy.”

Suna gathers his stuff together, and they leave with a wave to Kita. Osamu asks about Suna’s first day aboard the ship, and the conversation floats around the briefing Suna had left for earlier in the morning before it centers around Kita, of all topics. Osamu listens to him yammer on about Atsumu’s roommate as they head to the sparring room.

“Kita’s pretty cool. Kinda scary, though.” Osamu snorts, feeling a sense of deja-vu.

“My brother’s his roommate and said the exact same thing.”

“I feel like I can’t slack off when he’s there, even though we’re basically in different rooms. Did you know that he works in exactly 110-minute intervals with ten-minute breaks? No shortcuts, I checked. It’s like clockwork.”

Osamu makes a noise in acknowledgment. Kita _is_ a pretty unnerving person, but it’s mainly how put-together he is. That sort of plan-and-execute mindset of his is a little inhuman. It’s not so strange it warrants the brainpower Suna seems keen on exerting on this topic, however, Osamu thinks.

“What’s that space ash thing yer working on? Kita said that creature was covered in it.”

Suna sends him a sidelong glance, as if appraising his actual interest in the topic. He must pass the test, because Suna continues.

“Its scientific name is _Primum pulvis_. First dust. It’s what makes up the birthplace of stars. The majority of these clouds of gas consists of molecules of light elements such as hydrogen and helium, and when the force of gravity pulls them in, the collapse of the nebula leads to the birth of a star.” His mouth quirks up a little as he explains.

“It’s pretty commonplace in the universe, but there hasn’t been much research on it for some reason. Maybe ‘cause it’s not that flashy and doesn’t seem like it really does much. But I worked with this professor down on Earth, and we were looking into these papers, right. And these papers were trying to link space ash to the Graveyard of Ships.”

Osamu’s heard rumors of the Graveyard of Ships, the Bermuda Triangle of outer space, if you wanted to grossly simplify it. It’s located near a particularly active sector of the universe, stars constantly rising from the ashes of neighboring stars, and shuttles that pass by mysteriously shut down. It’s supposed to be a pretty gradual process, with no clear boundary line actually marking the territory of the graveyard, so it’s usually dismissed as hearsay.

Most ships stay away in general just because space in that area is so hard to navigate, the waste from star activity making it hard to cross.

“The weird thing is that in the ships they do manage to haul out of the Graveyard, there’s no sign of life aboard. Not a single living crew member. Not a single dead crew member, either, actually. Like they were never there. 

What they did find was significantly higher levels of space ash coating the surface of the ships, both inside and outside. It’s like what the Bible says, you know, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” 

Suna laughs a little.

“You can say it sounds crazy. Most researchers think it’s pretty far-fetched because space ash has never yielded harmful effects so far as we can see, and there aren’t enough numbers to prove anything is statistically significant yet.”

“I didn’t take ya to be religious,” Osamu says instead. “Considerin’ yer job as an astrobiologist is to study the origins of life.”

“I’m not really. Just think it’s interesting mostly, though I don’t think the two are quite as mutually exclusive as people generally make it seem.” They’ve made it to the room where cadets are allowed to train and spar and also the designated waiting room prior to compatibility assessments. Suna watches him as Osamu scans his fingerprint to let them in.

“The crew that managed to dig out the ships in the Graveyard all showed symptoms of varying levels of vision loss. I’m thinking the deterioration of their body systems could be related to the missing bodies and also the excessive levels of space ash, so my project is to investigate that. There’s not much to go off of, and that’s a little bit of faith, too, don’t you think?”

Osamu’s not sure he’s ever had that kind of faith in anything before. Certainly not enough to dedicate his life to something that might end up being a bust. He understands working hard at something every single day of his life and knowing he’ll do well when push comes to shove. There’s flying with Atsumu and knowing they’ll be partners before they even start the Drift. Attempting a risky maneuver during simulation that gets them scolded by the higher-ups because he knows Atsumu will follow through. Is that faith? Not quite, he doesn’t think.

The door slides open, and Osamu turns to Suna, who is still looking at him. Suna, who is interesting and new and unreadable. Suna, who believes in faith. He wants to understand more, to lay Suna open and make him knowable.

Osamu doesn’t know much about faith.

They enter together.


	2. Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Osamu's always liked the stars.

_Speak softly love, so no one hears us but the sky._

Stepping into the room feels like stepping into a separate pocket of space and into a new skin. The mood shifts infinitesimally, subtle but present, the expanse of the room pressing in resolutely. It’s empty, reserved for the assessment.

Although there’s virtually no way to control the results of the assessment, and it’s not an assessment one is able to fail anyway, there is a certain caliber associated with it that sobers them. The previously polite sense of tentative camaraderie stalls a little, dipping into the much more expected sense of awkwardness associated with those one is not quite familiar with yet.

Osamu clears his throat and doesn’t step away, but he fiddles with the pins at his collar and speaks to the room at large. 

“I dunno if they told ya already, but this room works ta heighten all emotions you feel.” Something that would normally only leave one slightly winded will end up making them feel bone-weary. Here, anger becomes fury and small, anxious insecurities bloom into hopelessness. At the same time, any drive or passion one might possess is sharpened a hundred times over to a knife’s point. “It’s part’a the whole ‘pushin’ you to yer mental and physical limits’ thing that’s supposed to generate readings for the compatibility rankings.” 

Suna makes a face, eyes narrowing in distaste “Sounds fun.” A pause that stretches, yawns. “You staying?” It’s an invitation as much as it is a question. 

Osamu finds himself agreeing. He had Atsumu with him to distract him from the nerves when it was his turn, he reasons, and it’s only right to pay it forward. 

Suna moves to the edge of the room and sets his things down, and then his hand moves to the zipper of his jumpsuit, pale fingers tugging it down until he’s left in just his undershirt and shorts.

They fall into the familiarity of stretches. Triceps, biceps, forearms then shoulders. Trapezius. Quads and hamstrings. Osamu rolls his neck, and the crack he feels sends relief coursing through his veins.

“Need help with that?” Osamu looks up from his straddle stretch where he’s sat near Suna’s feet.

“Yeah, sure, if ya don’t mind.” Suna’s hands are on his shoulders then, pushing down, pressure firm and even. “Ah, fuck, yeah.” He can feel his adductors and hamstrings stretching. A little more and then, “Okay, okay, okay, wait, stop, stop.” 

Suna laughs. “You’re stiff as hell.”

“Oh, fuck off.” They hold the position, and Osamu counts out loud to twenty, before the pressure eases as he sits up.

“Let me do you,” he says then, because he’s a decent guy and believes in the concept of equal compensation. He’s caught off-guard when Suna winks, sly and unapologetic, and Osamu’s mind is still processing his own words even as he reddens. He doesn’t know what expression he has on his face, but Suna’s laughing all of a sudden, open and delighted. It’s a little endearing.

He groans. “Yer a menace.”

Suna lies down on the mats and pulls his left leg up towards his torso. “Help me with this,” he directs, nudging Osamu with his other foot. Uncomfortably aware of his every movement all of a sudden, Osamu kneels between the spread of Suna’s legs. 

“What do you need?” he says. He places a hand on the knee of Suna’s prone leg to ground himself.

“Just push down on my leg until I say stop.”

Osamu wraps his hand around the bare skin of Suna’s left ankle. His thumb fits in the hollow by his Achilles’ tendon, and he imagines he can feel Suna’s heartbeat in the delicate veins of his foot. His other hand moves from Suna’s right knee to his thigh.

Slowly, he straightens Suna’s left leg with little resistance, until it’s perpendicular to the ground, then begins to inch it toward Suna’s ear, hyperaware as he eases the other’s legs apart. 

“Keep going?” He asks, when there’s about a foot of space left between Suna’s foot and the ground, and the words remind him to swallow a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. Suna’s eyes are averted, staring straight at the ceiling, and he breathes, slow and steady. His face is red.

He nods. “Yeah. I can take more.”

A few more inches, and then Suna makes a noise, bucking a little.

“Hips on the ground,” Osamu scolds. Suna exhales in a huff through his nose, jaw tense. “You’ll hurt yerself.” There’s a beat as Osamu waits for Suna to adjust, and he keeps his hand firm on the other’s thigh in reprimand.

“Just a little more,” he coaxes. Suna glares at his tone of voice, and Osamu smirks.

A minute later, Suna has his leg parallel to the ground, and they hold it for twenty seconds before Osamu lets go and allows the younger to sit up. 

“Other side,” Suna demands. Osamu shifts to accommodate. 

“How’re ya so flexible?” he asks, as he grips the other’s right leg.

“Ballet,” Suna grits out. Then, “I don’t think we even need to spar anymore. This room’s fucking with my energy levels.”

“Yer doing okay,” Osamu soothes. “Don’t whine.” His thumb rubs circles against the sharp jut of Suna’s ankle bone. Suna swears at him. “That’s pretty cool. Ya sure slouch a lot for a ballerina, though.” Suna swears again as Osamu pushes him into the stretch.

“Wasn’t anything serious. Just.” He inhales through his nose. Exhales. Osamu pauses to let him finish his sentence. “Go faster,” Suna says instead. Osamu presses his leg down the last few inches. “Just did it as an extracurricular for school.” Hold for twenty seconds. He sits up. “Clearly, haven’t done any proper stretching in a while.”

Osamu tosses him a water bottle. 

“Let’s spar a little to warmup for your assessment. Then I’ll leave ya alone.”

“How’s that work exactly? The assessment?” Osamu watches the long line of his throat as he swallows. He looks away.

“It’s diff’rent for everyone, apparently,” he answers. They’ll tell ya what to do through that monitor, and ya just need to follow what they tell you to do. It’s not gonna be easy‘s all I can say.” He claps a hand on Suna’s shoulder. “But don’t worry, it won’t kill ya. The room’s doin’ all the work, makes sure you’re push’d to yer limits.”

He hates it, though, if he’s honest. Hates everything about the tenuous grip he has on his emotions in this room and the lack of control. It’s necessary, of course, because compatibility rankings are essential, so he doesn’t begrudge the system for this requirement. 

Not everyone feels the same way, either, he knows. He imagines Kita, who has perfect control over every aspect of himself, is barely affected. Others, like Tendou, maybe, on the other side of the spectrum, probably even relish the opportunity to let loose so completely.

It’s probably a personal flaw of his that he’s so easily riled up, yet conscious enough of others that he refuses to let them know he’s bit the bait.

“You ready?” Suna tosses a staff his way, having gone to pick them up, and his thoughts disperse like leaves in the wind. He catches it in the air. It’s been a while since he’s set foot in the training room willingly, but still, there’s some ego attached to this, although neither of them has mentioned it. He can beat a newbie.

Confidence is a feeling he’s familiar with as a Miya. He’s had years of experience, this self-assuredness built from after-school confessions and cheers of the crowd and whispers of jealous classmates that have fed into belief in his looks, in his charisma, in his skills. He falls back into it easily, like comfort. It's not arrogance when it's the truth.

 _Is it really that easy?_ , some part of him whispers, a small, ever-persistent fear of manipulation, but he brushes it aside.

“Of course,” he says, and steps back onto the mat. 

They bow to each other and fall apart, eyes watchful. Usually Osamu would fall into a neutral stance, content to wait as long as necessary for the opponent to make the first move, using the time to observe. Predator watching prey. Suna doesn’t give him the chance, and moves forward quick on his feet, as if time has fast forwarded just for him. 

Stab, and parry. Suna wields the staff in his hand with clear purpose, a puppet master controlling his dolls. Maneuvers the two of them until his back is away from the wall.

Osamu strikes next. The staff in his hand transforms into a whip-like cord, curling around Suna’s ankle and dragging him forward.

Suna tilts backwards, overbalanced, breath rushing out of him. His staff hand moves forward, clumsy. Contact, barely. Osamu feels pain flare up below his ribs, and his own staff disengages.

Action, reaction. Strike and counterstrike and strike again.

Suna stumbles forward. Rights himself and swings his staff forward. It’s wide. Overhead block.

Osamu can feel the vibrations in his palms and in his teeth. Suna just misses his fingers. He unclenches his jaw.

Just in time, too, because Suna kicks forward, hitting him square in the chest. He doesn’t fall, but it’s a near thing.

“Fuck.” He surges forward, quick blows that have the younger on the defensive, clips him on the shoulder first and then the hip. Parry, and then thrust to the solar plexus.

Suna’s staff splits in two, become a pair of tonfas. He swings. Osamu dodges, and he thinks he’s in the clear, but Suna keeps going, tilting sideways. Connects.

Osamu thinks his lip might be split.

“You and your goddamn flexible core,” he grunts.

Suna sneers. “Jealous?”

“You wish,” He spits out. His grip is slippery with sweat. He hates this room. He feels more alive than ever before.

His heartbeat is thundering in his ears. He moves forward again. Wood on wood. He lands another hit. Counter.

Somewhere along the way, they lose their staffs, and then it’s skin on skin. Suna punches him in the jaw, and it feels like a hammer to the face, heavy and hard. Osamu’s hand shoots out, and he drags Suna down by the hair, exposing the pale of his throat, and forces him to his knees. He registers faintly, in the back of his mind, that he’s fighting dirty, but the thought falls somewhere small and insignificant, lost in the white of Suna’s snarl as he bares his teeth at him.

Between the red of exertion and the dark blue of the mats, Osamu forgets everything other than the thrumming just under his skin, something wild threatening to burst forth and consume, dissolve his skin and bone and flesh, and Suna below him.

Suna, who _bites_ and makes Osamu let go with a yelp. His thigh is stinging; he thinks the fucker drew _blood_ like some kind of animal. Then Suna is wrapping an arm around his knees and shoving forward like a bad imitation American football quarterback.

As Suna falls forward, he pulls Osamu down with him, the other’s shirt gripped white-knuckled in his fist. Osamu flounders, hands flying up to grip Suna’s shoulders, and it’s pure training that has Osamu just barely stopping himself from reaching back to break his fall and breaking his own wrists in the process.

He lands on his back, Suna on top of him. His breath is punched out of him, and he’s dimly aware that Suna’s got a hand cupped around the back of his head, preventing him from flat-out knocking himself out. Still doesn’t void the fact that the other had virtually used him as a landing pad.

He can break out of the grip easily because despite his speed and surprising ability to keep pace, it’s clear that Suna is starting to slack a little.

Osamu flips their positions and shoves Suna to the ground. “Don’t get overconfident, sucker.” His breath comes out harsh against his throat as he drags the other’s wrists up, one hand pinning them above his head, and his forearm unyielding across his chest.

Suna pants, chest heaving with exertion and pink in the face. He tries bucking up once, twice, but Osamu holds fast, and his struggles turn half-hearted.

“Do you yield?” Osamu asks. Punctuates it by increasing pressure on his forearm and gripping his wrists to bruise. Beneath him, Suna is warm and pliable, and his bangs are plastered to his forehead, dewy with sweat.

His mouth gapes open as he breathes, so Osamu can see the soft pink of his tongue inside.

He feels like he’s swallowed a falling star, something hot and burning traveling to his stomach and fizzing. Suna’s pulse races steady and hummingbird fast under his hand where he presses down.

No answer. Suna stares up at him, instead, eyes feverish bright. Osamu traces the path of a drop of sweat as it beads down the other’s forehead, gathering in his upper lashes. Suna blinks and it disperses, scattering in droplets down his cheek like the spray of a wave crashing against a beach. 

Gravity presses him into the body beneath him, and he sinks into it willingly.

Osamu releases his grip on the other's wrists as if in a dream, thoughts worlds away, and Suna reaches up, up, _up_ , until Osamu feels the slow, wet slide of his hand across the damp of his neck. He shivers.

Quietly, Osamu brings his fingers to the curve of Suna’s cheek, touch trailing feather light, then moves to brush his knuckles across his cheekbone, which is rapidly bruising an ugly plum purple. Tiny, thin red veins stand out, ugly where they’ve burst.

He lingers over the split cherry red of his bottom lip, presses down unthinkingly with his thumb and watches as it leaks and overflows. It’s going to hurt like a bitch to smile for a long while, and he’d feel bad if he didn’t have a matching one on his own face.

Suna’s tongue darts out instinctively to lick at the blood, wets the plush of his lip and the tip of Osamu’s finger. Osamu draws back as if stung, gaze darkening.

He dips down imperceptibly, drawn in, stops. His mind works sluggishly, drowned out by the sound of blood rushing in his ears. What, exactly, is he trying to accomplish here? He shakes his head, trying to clear his mind, and sweat drips from the ends of his hair.

Suna watches him, intense gaze calculating. Osamu feels like he’s been judged and found wanting. The younger seems to make some sort of decision with himself because his hand follows through with the arc of the slip and drops away, landing on the mat with a soft thump. Osamu misses it the way he would a missing tooth. He yearns to prod at the newfound gap with his tongue until it bleeds.

The tension’s gone. Osamu lets himself collapse on top of the other, and Suna’s breath escapes him as he wheezes. He rests his forehead against the mat next to Suna’s upturned face. It’s disgusting, smells sharply of rubber and latex, and beneath that, antiseptic and ozone. He’s going to have to thoroughly wash his face later.

Suna pushes at him. “Shove off, you pig,” he says, and Osamu rolls off, landing in a sprawl next to him. He stays there even as he hears the other get up, hears him walking around the room in search of something. Drowsiness creeps upon him with lazy fingers, dragging his lids down. If he stays in this position any longer, he’s going to start drooling.

Footsteps stop near his head, and then a towel is thrown at his face. He whines. A shoe prods him in the side, insistent, and he curls in on himself.

“You should go clean up. They’re gonna start my assessment soon, and you smell like sweat.”

“Like you’re any better,” Osamu mutters, but he picks himself up off the floor. Everything hurts. Tomorrow’s gonna be a bitch, he just knows it. He also kind of wants to say something to Suna, apologize maybe, although he’s not sure why he feels the urge. 

He hates this goddamn room.

“Guess I’ll see ya back later, then?” he chooses instead. He meets his gaze, firm, having to look down slightly since Suna’s back to slouching.

“Yup,” he says, popping the ‘p’. Looking at him now, his countenance is smooth and back to its usual unmoved expression. Osamu refuses to think about how moments before, things had been very, very different. 

As he moves to leave, Suna stops him. 

“Hey,” his thin eyebrows are furrowed together. “Thanks for everything, man.”

Osamu’s oddly touched, warmth sparking in his chest. “Yeah, of course.”

________________________________ 

Suna Rintarou, Osamu learns, is an insufferable roommate. 

He picks his gaze up from where it had inadvertently been trailing the arch of Suna’s back to where it dips into his shorts as Suna replays the song that has been playing for the past hour, once again restarting it seconds before it reaches the end.

He’s lying on his bed, propped up on his elbows as he scrolls through his holo-pad.

“Will ya pick another song already?” Osamu complains.

Suna slides a bored glance over to him. “No.”

“Don’t you have any work yer s’posed to be doin’? Papers to write?” Osamu himself is drowning in assignments. He’s sitting at his desk and trying to work through the mechanisms of the power source of a new, proposed aircraft Sakusa had drawn up. It isn't his area of expertise nor actually his own project, but he knows enough from having taken some required classes, and he owes a favor.

“Probably,” Suna answers. “It can wait.” He projects his holo-pad to the center of the room. “Look at what Atsumu sent me.”

Osamu watches impassively as a short clip of a kitten climbing a fence and falling over plays.

Suna had been easily integrated into the Miya-Kita breakfast trio following the first day, forming ties with the three of them effortlessly. Suna’s quiet fascination with Kita means that he has no problem in hanging out with him, and although he's relentlessly blunt with Atsumu, most of it is good-natured. Maybe.

In any case, Suna remains the closest with Osamu, so it comes as a surprise when Suna’s compatibility results arrive and out of the three of them, he’s got the highest match with Atsumu. Suna scoffs in disgust when he sees but allows Atsumu to hang on while he celebrates and laughs at Osamu.

He still feels a little bitter about it because he hates losing to his brother in anything, even if it’s really not losing and pretty meaningless anyway.

“Great,” he drawls out, turning back to his work. He’s checked it over twice already, and said as much to Sakusa, but Sakusa is neurotic and insistent that he keep it with him for the next day to check for flaws that aren’t there.

Rooming with Suna means making adjustments to his living style. Where previously he’d suffer through the nights in the quiet and the dark, he’s been sleeping better than ever. Although Suna doesn’t snore the same way Atsumu did, he constantly moves around in his sleep, and the rustling of the sheets lull Osamu to sleep at night. 

Instead, he’s learned to sleep with a faint glow lighting up the room. For someone whose life work involves investigating a substance that brings about potential blindness, Suna is surprisingly scared of the dark. Not that he admits it. But Osamu can see, and he notices.

The first few days after Suna arrives, he wakes up with eyebags threatening to rival the ones Osamu had previously. At first, Osamu brushes it off as the other simply adjusting to a new environment. After all, it’s not every day one leaves Earth for space.

He realizes, however, that on days that he stays up to work on a project late into the night, keeping his desk light at the dimmest setting, Suna wakes up the next day looking far more refreshed. So. He starts asking Suna to leave the east side wall transparent, and they sleep with starlight filtering through the tempered alumino-silicate glass.

It benefits the both of them because Suna’s finally able to get some sleep, and Osamu-- Osamu’s always liked the stars.

“Hey,” he says, abruptly, and his thumb rubs against the side of his stylus.

Suna hums in acknowledgment.

Osamu hesitates a little. “Tomorrow we’re gonna be docking at a nearby port.” He turns from his desk. Needs to watch Suna’s expression.

“So, I’ve heard,” is the response. Suna’s looked up from his holo-pad, finally. Eye contact.

“Let’s go down and explore th’ place early tomorrow.” His throat is dry. “Jus’ the two of us.”

He watches the smile unfurl on Suna’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter at [@atsusuna](https://www.twitter.com/atsusuna)


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